Ricin letter sent to US President is connected to Silk Road’s merchant

The United States Department of Homeland Security identified one of the suspects that mailed poison-laced letters to the President Barack Obama, earlier this year, as a drug seller that usually operated on the Bitcoin-exclusive illegal marketplace Silk Road.

Brian de Vallance, acting assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, included the following information in the letter to the lawmakers: “of recent noteworthy interest was the determination that the suspect who had sent ricin to President Obama earlier this year was a vendor on the Silk Road site”.

The online marketplace – that has recently reopened with new improvements – was known for facilitating the trafficking of narcotics, fake passports or biological agents, among other illegal products, in exchange for Bitcoin.

Vallance’s letter, released by the Senate committee last Friday (15), didn’t name the suspect, but there are only two people indicted for sending letters with remnants of the toxin to Barack Obama during this year.

One of them is James Everett Dutschke, charged in April and scheduled for trial on unrelated fondling charges this month. The second one is the actress Shannon Richardson ( who had minor roles in the television series “The Walking Dead” and “The Vampire Diaries”), suspect of sending the letters in May and currently in jail pending trial.

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Maria is an experienced journalist currently living in the UK. She has been writing about Bitcoin and the altcoin universe since 2013. She is also a member of the Lifeboat Foundation's New Money Systems Board and a big cryptocurrency supporter.